


The Storms We're Facing

by lttledcve, spinncr



Series: Valar Dohaeris [8]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, F/M, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, welp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-06 21:09:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20297977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lttledcve/pseuds/lttledcve, https://archiveofourown.org/users/spinncr/pseuds/spinncr
Summary: “I break when I’m not with you,” he whispers, hating to put this on her. He doesn’t expect her to fix him, but it’s enough that she knows, that she doesn’t think he’s crazy, that she bears as many scars as he does. Hell, he still gets bloody ghost pains in his hand, the hand he is still in possession of. His already somewhat slow mind can’t make sense of all of the layers between this life and the last, and which was the past and which is the now. If he can’t even keep his own life straight, how is he supposed to prevent three wars? How is he supposed to keep their family safe? “I don’t know how to not be with you, Sansa. All these years, and I’ve never figured it out.”





	The Storms We're Facing

** _j a i m e:_ **

The tourney grounds are shaping up well. The stands are being erected and a box built for the King. Knights of the realm have been arriving steadily now, and the spectacle is even greater than he can remember the Tourney of the Hand being all those years ago. He’s even given thought to competing himself. He hasn’t participated in a tourney since… actually since the Tourney of the Hand, come to think of it. In his last life. There’d been no time or money for tourneys after that before, and he has no interest in this life. 

At least, he hadn’t, not before Sansa had returned to him. Now he’s got dreams of godsdamned songs in his head. The Golden Knight and his Northern Wolf. He knows she hasn’t dreamed of pretty songs and love stories since Joffrey, but he finds he wants to give them to her anyway. He wants to ask for her favor, to meet her gaze from across the pitch, to lay the crown of roses on her hair and watch her blush and smile that secret smile of hers as he presses a kiss to her hand. 

He can’t do any of that, of course. Sansa would be dead before they made it back to the Keep. 

He could always compete and give Cersei the crown, but in truth, the thought makes him sick, and it would probably be just as suspicious as giving it to Sansa. Still, the thoughts swarming through his head make him grin ruefully. He’ll have to tell Sansa, it would make her laugh, him making a greenboy out of himself. 

He meanders for a while, milling about and carefully avoiding the knights that hail him as if he is friends with a single one of them. The King’s Gate is crowded with builders and materials for the grounds, and the grin slides off his face as his realizes he’ll need to go through the Gate of the Gods to get back into the city quickly. He pauses, takes a deep breath to bolster himself, and heads in that direction. 

There are enough gates in the city that he can typically avoid using that one, and he does, frequently. Travel to Casterly Rock—not that he goes with any frequency, but still—follows the River Road through the River Gate, and the King doesn’t like taking Jaime on his hunts. Even so, he’s passed by it many times, passed  _ through _ it enough times to have nightmares just from the sight alone. 

He doesn’t use that gate if it can be avoided. 

But Sansa is  _ back _ , she’s alive, and if she can get over her fears, maybe it’s time for him to get over his as well. 

The closer he gets, the harder his heart pounds, and his hand is gripping his pommel tight enough to leave marks.  _ She’s safe, she’s alive. She’s safe, she’s alive,  _ he reminds himself over and over again. He doesn’t look up at the gate, not out of fear this time, but an awareness that he’ll have one of his attacks. 

They’re increasingly rare, almost nonexistent these days, but when he’d first re-awoken, it had seemed like around every corner lay another memory. He wouldn’t just remember, though, it would be like he was living it again, a waking dream. A waking nightmare. Time and exposure were enough to soothe away many of them, but not this one. He’s not sure this is something he can ever recover from, not truly. 

Just before he gets close enough to not have to _see_ _it _anymore, movement at the top catches his eye. _Red. _

_ She stands at the very edge of the battlements, Cersei behind her. Too close to the edge, move back! Move back! Her hair is snarled, and her face bruised. No, no, no, who touched her? He’ll kill them, kill every one of them. There’s a glint and it’s a dagger at her throat, no, Gods, no please, how did this happen, get to her, have to get to her, talk to Cersei, talk her down, get away from the edge, I’m coming, Sansa, I’m not far away, I’m right here, right behind you, no, NO—  _

**“NO!” **

He yanks her back from the edge, and blinks. She’s… smaller. He looks around, notices two Kingsguard with their swords drawn, Joffrey looking at him with a bewildered snarl. 

“What the bloody hell is wrong with you! Unhand my lady this instant, you brute! I’ll have you thrown in the Black Cells for this!” Joffrey keeps going, and Jaime swallows, releasing Sansa’s arm as he steps back. He can’t quite catch his breath, can’t help but see Sansa in double, the Sansa he saved and the Sansa he… he… 

“A—apologies, my Lady. You seemed to be losing your balance,” he says, voice choked. He needs to touch her, needs to check her, her  _ throat _ , needs to feel her heart beating.  _ I almost didn’t make it _ , he thinks, though distantly he knows that Sansa had been in no more danger than she usually is with Joffrey. He doesn’t even realize what he’s saying until he says it. “Apologies to you as well, my Prince, but I’ve been sent to fetch the Lady Sansa for tea with the Queen.”  _ We need to go, get away from the edge, away from the gate, come on, quickly, please, please— _

** _S a n s a:_ **

By the time Joffrey comes by with his latest invitation, Sansa has run out of polite excuses. She allows him to lead her through the Red Keep as if he has some grand surprise to show her, as if every part of his home is new and exciting, and  _ grand _ . It doesn’t matter that most of these places haunt her in her memories, in her dreams. There is not much of this place that she doesn’t remember, that hasn’t destroyed some part of her family, of herself in her previous life. She avoids the Iron Throne as much as she can, or any gathering of the Kingsguard that doesn’t include her husband. She smiles when she must, and finds that for all of the differences in this Joffrey, there is still much of the former in him. 

Luckily for her, he’s just as easy to placate with a few well placed words which can convince him to do something he might not have done given the opportunity. 

It’s a sword that cuts both ways, because if she says something just a little  _ too  _ clever that he catches, it’s just as disastrous as the Joffrey she once knew too. 

Septa Mordane trails lightly behind them, keeping watchful eyes as the chaperone, and Sansa is glad that Jon is with Arya instead of here. She’s not sure she could bear to see the questioning look in his eyes at her demeanor towards the Prince, or the very deliberate words she uses to make sure nothing escalates. 

Until the Prince stops in front of the Gate of the Gods and her heart jumps into her throat. 

She doesn’t want to, not this. Not yet. 

She had known the moment the Dragon Queen had stopped them what was coming. There had barely been enough time, just enough influence left to secure Jaime’s escape from Daenerys’ clutches, but Sansa would not be so lucky. Not after she had been the very one to spread the knowledge of Jon’s true parentage, his  _ stronger claim  _ to the Iron Throne. 

It was treason in the eyes of Daenerys Targaryen, regardless of whether Sansa had bent the knee or not. 

She isn’t fool enough to believe that Daenerys didn’t know exactly what she had been doing when she had sent Sansa Stark as an  _ envoy _ into the proverbial lion’s den. 

“ _ Scared _ of heights, my lady?” Joffrey insinuates with a layer of amusement she’s come to recognize, and Sansa swallows slightly. She must not give him anything, must not show any sign of weakness that he can exploit and use against them when he has the power to. “No, Your Grace.” She answers softly, and allows him to lead her up to the top of the battlement, memories overtaking her senses. 

The Prince doesn’t  _ mean  _ to be cruel. At least not in this. He doesn’t know of her particular history with this gate, and it becomes increasingly more difficult to breathe the more he talks, the more he tries to impress her with the grand height of the gate, the sight of the tourney grounds coming to life, all in his father’s name. How he has half a mind to win it if he chooses to compete, paired with a promise of naming her his queen of love and beauty once he does—(“you’re so  _ gallant _ , Your Grace”).

It feels too much like their time on Traitor’s Walk, him flanked by his guard, her waiting for the threat. She can feel the cold steel of Cersei’s dagger against her neck, the rushing behind her of something, some _ one,  _ coming towards her. 

“ _ NO!” _

This time, the someone makes it, and Sansa doesn’t need to turn around to know it’s her husband. 

_ Gods. Had he needed to suffer this sight again too?  _

The same Gods who sent them back can’t be cruel enough to keep making them relive their worst moments. Unless it’s an unnecessary reminder of what’s to come should they fail. 

“Indeed, Ser,” she says breathlessly, her chest heaving with the effort. “It’s quite alright, Your Grace, I’m so terribly clumsy. Thank you, Ser Jaime.” 

_ Jaime, Jaime, Jaime.  _

She doesn’t want to find the Queen, not now, not after being  _ here _ , and she finds that she would much prefer to suffer Joffrey’s attentions than take tea with Cersei Lannister. 

“I—yes, that’s right. Perhaps we can finish the tour some other time, Your Grace. You could tell me more about your new sword, should you have time between your very important duties as Prince, of course.” 

It seems to placate the purple-faced Prince, whose lips pull into a sort of smirk that looks so much like a lion’s snarl it seems almost impossible to think anyone could believe him a stag. “Of course, Lady Sansa.” 

She forces her legs to bend in a curtsey, and she prays her knees don’t look like they’re knocking together from lack of strength. “Ser Jaime? If you’d be so kind,” she asks, more out of a need to touch him rather than the faux clumsiness she had blamed everything on. Taking his arm will merely be brushed off as a young girl needing assistance due to the height, more than anything else. “Septa Mordane, I will find you after.” 

** _j a i m e:_ **

He tries to keep it together, at least in front of Joffrey, and the septa chaperoning them, knowing that one way or another word will get back to Cersei about this, unless they are very,  _ very  _ lucky. If he draws attention to his odd behavior, it’s even more likely. But it’s hard to breathe, and his vision is whiting out, and if he has an attack again in the middle of the city, he can’t protect Sansa, and he couldn’t protect Sansa last time either, he’d gotten then captured, then gotten her—

As soon as her hand takes his arm he pulls her away, walking so swiftly he’s almost dragging her. He can hear squawking from behind them, but whether it’s his nephew or the septa, he’s not sure. His hand clutches hers from where it rests in his elbow, too tight most likely, but he can’t let go, can’t slow down, can’t  _ breathe— _

He has no clue where he’s going but pulls her into the first alleyway he spies and drags her against him, his hands fisting in her hair and the back of her gown. He can’t speak just yet, and he knows it’s not quite an attack, not the kind where he loses time, but something very much like one. For a minute, he just holds her tightly, trying to breathe, one short, jagged sob wrenching itself out of his throat. 

“I was right there,” he gasps. They’ve never talked about it, not the details.  _ He’s _ never talked about it, not with anyone. “I was right behind you, just coming out of the bastion, when she—I was with you,  _ I was with you, _ ” he promises, confesses. He presses his lips to her hair, her forehead, holds her face in his hands. “Not again,” he vows, shaking his head frantically. “I won’t let it happen again, I’ll kill Cersei, I’ll kill Daenerys and every single dragon of hers, I’ll kill anyone who touches you. I love you, Sansa, I—” He cuts off, drops his forehead to hers and squeezes his eyes against the tears building behind them. “I can’t do it again, Sansa,” he confesses, frantically shaking his head. “I won’t lose you again.” 

** _S a n s a:_ **

She’s tripping over her own feet, but somehow she manages to keep up without making too much of a show of it. If she looks too panicked, if she looks too  _ worried  _ there will be no escaping the Septa, or Jon in the future. And their little moments, whatever little moments they can find, are too important to lose because she allowed Joffrey to drag her up there when she should have known better. Sansa hadn’t accounted for her husband’s presence, hadn’t even thought for a moment what seeing that could possibly do to him. She isn’t even sure of how much he had seen, if the noise behind them had been him that day or if she had imagined it. 

Judging by his reaction now, he had seen. 

Her stomach flips, and her chest constricts in a way that Sansa hasn’t experienced in a long time. To be there, to have seen that...she had been lucky, she thinks. She’s experienced so much in her life— _ lives, _ now that Sansa thinks of it—and to lose Jaime after finding some small taste of happiness in the world? 

He tugs, but he doesn’t really have to. The moment the pair is afforded any kind of privacy Sansa is stepping into him, wrapping her arms tightly around him as she’s crushed to his chest. “Jaime,” she tries, but it’s too hard to speak, to hard to feel anything when the last time she had been atop that particular gate, it had been for her execution.

The noise that falls from her husband is enough to make her vision blur with tears, and Sansa holds on just a little tighter, one hand finding his hair so she can slide her fingers through the now short strands, brushing against his scalp soothingly. “You’re here. I’m here.  _ Breathe _ , my love,” she murmurs softly, ignoring her own thundering heart to focus on him first. He’s what matters most to her, he has been for a long time. 

_ I was with you.  _

Her chin wobbles from the effort of trying not to cry. And Sansa doesn’t know why, doesn’t know why that simultaneously means so much but terrifies her all at once. She hadn’t died _ alone _ , with the Dragon Queen enacting her revenge right where she could see, and Cersei taking her revenge right behind her, and the rest of her family far away. But Jaime had been  _ with _ her, had seen, and she can’t stop the tears as she reaches up to cup his face in return. It’s never enough, it’s never  _ close _ enough, not in the past life or this one. Will it ever change? Will she ever not long for this man? 

The damned armor is in her way, so she touches what skin she can, turns her face into his hand so she can press a kiss to his palm. Anything she can find, anything she can reach. The urge to find a small corner of the world where she can hide them away, allow them to heal a little bit more from the wounds that they’ve been carrying since they had last left each other in their former life, and every burden he’s carried on his shoulders alone until they came back to one another. 

“I love you. With all that I am, Jaime.” 

She lifts up onto her toes so that when their foreheads touch they are breathing the same air. Sansa longs for more, for what is so natural between them and had been since they married all those years ago, but instead settles for what she can have now, while silently promising him more,  _ everything _ , as soon as she can secure it for them. 

“It won’t come to be. Not this time, I promise.” She will be smarter, she will win any and every game that she has to in order to keep her promise. “Not Joffrey, Cersei, the Night King, Daenerys Targaryen, or anyone else.” Her fingers stroke his cheek gently, and Sansa pulls back only enough to catch his gaze. “We learn. We learn from mistakes”—their own and others—“and that’s why we’ll survive this. Together.” 

** _j a i m e:_ **

One hand grips her wrist, a silent request to not let go, to hang onto him, not yet,  _ not yet.  _ What they’re doing, these messages back and forth, hidden moments in dark hallways… it’s not sustainable. He’s no stranger to this life, and yet there’s something unpalatable about this, some threshold he’d never crossed with Cersei. There’s too much between them, too much pain and agony and loss and love to try to hide it from people. They’re going to get caught. Even more than that… he’s not sure they can get through this, not sure  _ he _ can get through this, if he’s not by her side. They hold each other together. 

His thumb wipes her tears, but her face is blurry through his own. 

He nods fervently, trying to pull himself together, trying to catch his breath. “Sorry, I’m sorry, I just—” He doesn’t know what to tell her, how to confess that sometimes he...goes back to their old life. Sometimes his memories get overlaid on top of what he’s seeing, and for a moment he can’t tell the difference. “I saw you up there, and—and—”

He had thought he’d gotten past this, that he was stronger now, especially with Sansa beside him, guiding him. It terrifies him to think that maybe that’s not true. What if he endangers her? What if he has an attack in front of Cersei, or Ned, or Littlefinger, or any number of the people in this city that could see him dead? He can’t always tell why he has them, or what to avoid, or when to avoid it. He can’t have been sent back to relive half his life, only to finally be reunited with his love and go mad from it. 

But if anything could come close to driving him mad, it’s that image. Even now, seventeen years later, he still has that image seared into his brain as he falls asleep. The wind had been blowing, and he had thought for a split second that it was just her hair, the red that sprayed out in front of her. He hadn’t seen the knife move until it was already done. He sees it every time he closes his eyes, even now, even as he holds her in his arms. 

“Sansa, I can’t…I need…” He doesn’t know how to say it, doesn’t know if he should even bother, because if there was a way, he knows she’d have already found it. He closes his eyes, presses his lips to her forehead again, before leaning back—scant inches, he can’t go too far—to look her in the eye, using their joined hands to wipe the tears away. “I break when I’m not with you,” he whispers, hating to put this on her. He doesn’t expect her to fix him, but it’s enough that she  _ knows _ , that she doesn’t think he’s crazy, that she bears as many scars as he does. Hell, he still gets bloody ghost pains in his hand,  _ the hand he is still in possession of.  _ His already somewhat slow mind can’t make sense of all of the layers between this life and the last, and which was the past and which is the now. If he can’t even keep his own life straight, how is he supposed to prevent three wars? How is he supposed to keep their family safe? “I don’t know how to not be with you, Sansa. All these years, and I’ve never figured it out.”

** _S a n s a:_ **

They’re going to get caught. It’s only a matter of time before someone else walks passed, or the alleyway is needed for another secret meeting. It’s exactly how the city operates, how the players of the great game survive, and they’re not the first pair to sink into the shadows and hope to go unnoticed. Against her better judgment Sansa doesn’t pull back, refuses to put any space between them anymore than necessary. She’ll have to deal with the aftermath of that choice, and spin whatever consequences there are in their favor. Truly it isn’t all too bad, her father still is the Acting Hand to a very much alive Robert Baratheon. 

She fights back an unamused laugh and instead clutches into her husband a little more tightly. He needs this, and she does too. 

“You don’t need to be sorry.” Sansa’s voice is nothing but a soft whisper, but there’s a sort of hard meaning behind her words. There  _ could  _ be ramifications for it, but she can hardly hold it against him, knowing what he had seen the last time she had been up there. If it had been him, her chest  _ aches _ at the thought, and her eyes start to burn, Sansa knows she would have done the very same. “I didn’t want to go up there, but Joffrey  _ insisted,  _ and I wouldn’t give him anything to use against us.”

He always had had the talent for twisting things into punishments, talking sweet words in one breath while pointing weapons at you in the next. 

“But if you had been in trouble, I don’t think there’s anything in creation that could keep me away.”

Dragons, Dragon Queens, the dead, and his sister hadn’t been enough in their last life. There’s no reason for that to change now. 

It’s time to start taking action, Sansa realizes slowly. They’ve started their changes, but most of her navigating and slight interruptions have been to keep the status quo while they anticipate the next move. It’s been easy to slip into the same routine, to say and do what’s necessary in order to survive, but what will that truly change? 

Jon Arryn is digging. Perhaps it’s time to give him something to find. 

It’s not the time to tell him her plan, not yet. Not when old wounds are still festering. They can meet later, maybe see how useful the Spider of King’s Landing truly is. For now Sansa gives him a small smile — _ his _ smile—before she leans forward to press kisses where she can. Each cheek, his forehead, jaw, even his nose if only to get a small smile. “What, husband?” She asks softly. Surely he knows that if it’s within her power to give it to him, she will without question. 

His confession nearly stuns her, and Tully blue eyes search his face as her thumbs wipe away any and all traces of tears. It’s the same for her, as it had been long before their wedding day. He was the thread sewn throughout her, keeping her together when nothing else could. “Jaime,” she pleads, a shaky thing that’s full of emotion, so much so that Sansa stops and rests her head against his shoulder, just to  _ breathe.  _

“I’m always with you, remember?” He had told her himself, had nearly knocked the wind out of her with this newfound way with words that he has. “This separation is temporary. And  _ grating at my patience  _ day by day.” 

** _j a i m e:_ **

He doesn’t know how she does it. Even in the midst of terror—because he  _ knows _ she was just as terrified as him, if not more so—she manages to keep calm, to think rationally, to  _ calculate,  _ to strategize. She revisited the place she was murdered with the boy responsible for the murder of three of her family members and her own torture. She maintains that Joffrey was nothing compared to Ramsay, but Jaime knows there are different kinds of torture. Ramsay may have been more a monster than Joffrey, but Joffrey stole Sansa’s innocence, destroyed her ability to hope, and Jaime knows just how horrible a thing that is. 

She had stood in a waking nightmare, with another nightmare at her back, and her only thought was  _ don’t give him anything to use against us.  _ He huffs a laugh, though it doesn’t quite come out. He wants her to teach him. He can handle fear, even panic. He’s a soldier, he knows both feelings intimately. But the attacks… those are something different. If he could just fight them off… somehow stay present, stay functional, he knows he can figure it out one way or another. But losing all awareness of his surroundings? That’s dangerous in any situation, let alone the Red Keep. If he can learn even an ounce of her control, he’d feel more at peace. Her kisses pepper his face, and he longs to turn into one, catch her lips on his, but the angle is wrong, her body so much shorter than his, and he sighs, hating the Gods a little, despite the gift they’ve both been given. Even so, each press of her lips, chaste as they are, is another kernel of peace taking root in the pit of his stomach, and he feels like he can breathe again. 

_ I’ve carried you with me always,  _ he had told her, and he’d meant it. She’s been with him every moment of every day since he first fell in love with her, before even. “Yes, and you are, but I still prefer the real thing,” he murmurs, his lips mimicking something almost like a smile. 

He knows what she means, but sometimes he forgets that Sansa barely has twenty name days behind her,  _ total.  _ He’d been almost as long without her as she has been alive, and that’s counting both lives. She can’t fathom that length of separation, not because she lacks imagination or doesn’t love him as much, but simply… she has no gauge for that length of time. It’s not temporary for him, it’s his state of being. What’s temporary are those rare moments that break his solitude, gifting him mere minutes alone with her. He knows why it’s necessary, and he will keep it up as long as he is able. And he truly means that. He doesn’t mean until his patience wears thin, or until his lust grows uncontrollable. 

He doesn’t think he’ll be able to control what happens when the memories collide with reality and he’s worried he’ll give them away. It could cost him his life, and Sansa’s too, potentially, though he thinks that’s less likely. It’s a small comfort, knowing what is coming for them all, but it’s a comfort all the same. 

He knows that tone of voice though, and he knows that Sansa has begun to  _ think _ . Not that she ever stops, really, but this isn’t just thinking. It’s scheming. This time he truly does grin. 

“I trust you,” he breathes, not bothering to ask what it is she’s scheming up. Whatever it is, when she needs his support, she will ask for it. And she’ll have it, too. 

**Author's Note:**

> So, we have Sansa's death. She travelled South with Jaime (against her better judgement), and was captured along with her idiot husband, then traded to Cersei as a "diplomatic envoy" from Daenerys, who obviously knew what Cersei would do with that. Sansa was killed along with Missandei above the Gate of the Gods.


End file.
